Anna Agafia: Nielsen & Szymanowski Violin Concertos — A passionately classical approach

The Danish violinist Anna Agafia, who’s now in her mid-20s, has a remarkable CV. She had a career as a child actor, leaving her with five entries in IMDb. She was a young figure skater whose prospects were ended by a knee problem at the age of 12. And as a teenager she took on extra studies in maths just in case she ended up studying philosophy – another of her passions – at college. She is the 2022 winner of the Thierry Scherz Prize (won by the Cork pianist Kevin Jansson in 2016), which is for a recording on Switzerland’s Claves label.

The repertoire choice of two lesser heard 20th-century concertos is her own. Nielsen’s 1916 concerto is an obvious celebration of her country’s greatest composer, and she loves Szymanowski’s Second, from 1933, for “its subtle combination of ethereal moments and more impassioned passages with a hint of folk music, all finishing off in an absolutely epic fashion”.

Her tone is sweet and her vibrato light and clarity of line is high on her agenda in an approach that you might call passionately classical. Her long-breathed phrasing is particularly illuminating in the Nielsen; her relaxed virtuosity is put to more thrusting use in the Szymanowski. Aleksandar Marković and Sinfonia Varsovia are perceptive partners.